Date: 19th March 2010, Wednesday
Observation Time: 7:45pm to 8:30pm (~45mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted..as well as Moon waxing on 4th day.
Instruments: AT102ED. Tried new Pan 35 and UHC filter.
Had quick browsing session with Aparna. Moon was waxing 4th day.
M42: Pan35 20x shows whole orion nebula M42 + M43 + running man nebula stars area. BEcasue of light pollution the nebulosity is not as impressive as dark sight..still the middle dark pier pops up in 20x itself. theta Orionis, trapezium, is barely visible. Nag 17T4 41x shows M42 better. Only 4 stars in Theta are resolvable. Nag 17T4 + UHC filter definitely shows more nebulosity, but it made whole image blue.. thats lil bizarre.. first time i used this UHC filter. whats the blue color indicates ?
Hmmm... "UHC (ultra-high contrast) filter has a wider bandpass (22 to 26 nanometers [nm]) than other narrowband filters but a much narrower one than any broadband filter. Through a UHC filter, the background sky appears darker and stars take on a blue color. Emission nebulae benefit most from this filter."
Sigma Orionis: (New): Treated Sigma to be Mintaka. This one is excellent. In 20x Pan35, you can see another trapezium here as Theta Orionis. Right part of the trapez is Sigma, while the left part is STF761. igma shows AB-E pair. With 17T4 41x, star D pops up betn AB-E pair, closer to AB. with 7T1 ~101x, clearly see star C really close to AB, but opposite side of D. Indeed excellent. The 4 stars in 3 different views definitely shows the beauty of magnification and how the magnitude pops up incrementally. Need to observe more carefully.
Description abt Sigma.
M45 Pleiades: In Pan35 20x, looks impressive. 9 stars. Its upside-down and the ? angle switched to Right.
Moon: Naked eye, can see the phase as well as whole dark side sort of lit up.. In Pan35, 20x, its marvelous. The dark side really lits up and can clearly see the difference betn bright and dark side. Picture is so crisp to see the crates on terminator. 17T4, 41x, improved the image with more details on the craters. Aparna went crazy with Pan35 view. Infact best i have ever seen..
Later, went for nice dinner at Cafe Athena at PB with Aparna, Dilip and Ashwin.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Mars - First Time
Observed Mars twice in Jan-Feb. Just feeling the gaps in the blog..
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Jan Second week:
From my home: ~11pm: XTi10 with TMB4 i.e. ~300x: Mars was overhead lil on east. Saw the northen polar ice-caps. First time in life.. Clear white.. Can also see a dark line surrounding that ice cap. Not sure what it was.. Seeing was in-out.
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Jan Last week:
From Jon's place in Clairmont: ~7pm-9:30pm : Meade 12" f/6 research grade reflector: with 4.5mm nagler ~ ~400x: Excellent image of Mars.. had never seen it before like this.. Clear white ice-cap, better than my home viewing (because of scope and mags).. can see dark areas going from North to south on Mars 's face. We were at jon's for ~2.5 hrs.. and checking it every now and then.. and according to jon's friend, Jeff, it seemed like the face has rotated.. lil hard for me to keep track.. i wasnt aware that the face changes so fast..
Also had quick browsing thru 12" on M41, M42, M46, M47.
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Jan Second week:
From my home: ~11pm: XTi10 with TMB4 i.e. ~300x: Mars was overhead lil on east. Saw the northen polar ice-caps. First time in life.. Clear white.. Can also see a dark line surrounding that ice cap. Not sure what it was.. Seeing was in-out.
---
Jan Last week:
From Jon's place in Clairmont: ~7pm-9:30pm : Meade 12" f/6 research grade reflector: with 4.5mm nagler ~ ~400x: Excellent image of Mars.. had never seen it before like this.. Clear white ice-cap, better than my home viewing (because of scope and mags).. can see dark areas going from North to south on Mars 's face. We were at jon's for ~2.5 hrs.. and checking it every now and then.. and according to jon's friend, Jeff, it seemed like the face has rotated.. lil hard for me to keep track.. i wasnt aware that the face changes so fast..
Also had quick browsing thru 12" on M41, M42, M46, M47.
Binocular Browsing
Date: 17th March 2010, Wednesday
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted
Instruments: Nikon 10x50 binoc
I really never browsed thru skies from new home. though i have mounted the telescope, I really invested time into how much i can see from my patio. Also it was good refresher for some winter/spring constellations.
Heavy light pollution.. Can only see bright stars by naked eye.. NELM may be betn 3-4. Thats based on Ursa Minor. Polaris (alpha), beta clearly visible.. Gamma was in-out.. and i didn't see any other stars.
Double Cluster: It wasn't visible by naked eye.. probably few stars in there, but really hard to tell if its a cluster.. hence bino is required. Cassiopeia Gamma-Delta line directly points to double cluster. Clearly see one of the clusters. With lot of bright stars, but the second cluster is lil hard to detect..
Pleiades: Nice star cluster. 7 stars visible naked eye. 9 stars visible thru binoc. All bright stars in the Perseus upper arm are clearly visible and they point to Pleiads. Interesting thing i notices is the number of stars in the background of pleiades.. they are like bunch of stars, way fainter, but heavy in concentration behind it.. i never noticed them before.
Algol: The lower arm has only 3 bright stars. One at the joint with the upper arm Alpha-Mirfak, Algol, and one more star Rho-Per. Algol was brighter than Rho, but fainter than Alpha. dont know abt Algol's current magnitude.. need to follow it more..
M1: Failed.. Picked up the wrong location. Tried to look for it above zeta Tuari, but it should be below, inside the V shape.
M35: Can clearly see whole Gemini constellation. M35 is on Tau side way above Zeta Tau. V-Mu-Eta-M35 form rotatated parallelogram. M35, fainter..still visible..seems bigger.
M36-M38-M37: M36 is the middle one, while M38 is inside Auriga. Either M36-M38 or M36-M37 fit in the same view. ~4-5 deg apart from each others. M36 seems to be brighter and seems smaller than other two. M38 bigger than other two ??
Quick Orion browsing: M42 nebula visible. Mintaka fainter than belt stars. Mruga-Shirsha Cr69 visible. really widespread..
Quick browsing for Canis Major: M41 seemed lil brighter than M35. Probably bigger than M35?
Tau CMa: Cluster is not visible in binoculars.. it just seemed to be a bright star..
M46-M47: M47 the brighter and widespread one is clearly visible.. again the M46 the fainter one feels like to be there but not sure.. These are like two FoV away from sirius.. i.e. 10-12 deg away from Sirius.
M93: Because of recent browsing, found it easily. Seemed to be like M35.. probably fainter than it.. can clearly see it.
M44: FAILED. I thought this should have been easier to see in binocs.. but as it was overhead, was tricky.. got the location correct, betn lion sickle and proceyon, but still didn't find it.
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted
Instruments: Nikon 10x50 binoc
I really never browsed thru skies from new home. though i have mounted the telescope, I really invested time into how much i can see from my patio. Also it was good refresher for some winter/spring constellations.
Heavy light pollution.. Can only see bright stars by naked eye.. NELM may be betn 3-4. Thats based on Ursa Minor. Polaris (alpha), beta clearly visible.. Gamma was in-out.. and i didn't see any other stars.
Double Cluster: It wasn't visible by naked eye.. probably few stars in there, but really hard to tell if its a cluster.. hence bino is required. Cassiopeia Gamma-Delta line directly points to double cluster. Clearly see one of the clusters. With lot of bright stars, but the second cluster is lil hard to detect..
Pleiades: Nice star cluster. 7 stars visible naked eye. 9 stars visible thru binoc. All bright stars in the Perseus upper arm are clearly visible and they point to Pleiads. Interesting thing i notices is the number of stars in the background of pleiades.. they are like bunch of stars, way fainter, but heavy in concentration behind it.. i never noticed them before.
Algol: The lower arm has only 3 bright stars. One at the joint with the upper arm Alpha-Mirfak, Algol, and one more star Rho-Per. Algol was brighter than Rho, but fainter than Alpha. dont know abt Algol's current magnitude.. need to follow it more..
M1: Failed.. Picked up the wrong location. Tried to look for it above zeta Tuari, but it should be below, inside the V shape.
M35: Can clearly see whole Gemini constellation. M35 is on Tau side way above Zeta Tau. V-Mu-Eta-M35 form rotatated parallelogram. M35, fainter..still visible..seems bigger.
M36-M38-M37: M36 is the middle one, while M38 is inside Auriga. Either M36-M38 or M36-M37 fit in the same view. ~4-5 deg apart from each others. M36 seems to be brighter and seems smaller than other two. M38 bigger than other two ??
Quick Orion browsing: M42 nebula visible. Mintaka fainter than belt stars. Mruga-Shirsha Cr69 visible. really widespread..
Quick browsing for Canis Major: M41 seemed lil brighter than M35. Probably bigger than M35?
Tau CMa: Cluster is not visible in binoculars.. it just seemed to be a bright star..
M46-M47: M47 the brighter and widespread one is clearly visible.. again the M46 the fainter one feels like to be there but not sure.. These are like two FoV away from sirius.. i.e. 10-12 deg away from Sirius.
M93: Because of recent browsing, found it easily. Seemed to be like M35.. probably fainter than it.. can clearly see it.
M44: FAILED. I thought this should have been easier to see in binocs.. but as it was overhead, was tricky.. got the location correct, betn lion sickle and proceyon, but still didn't find it.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dark night kickoff in freezing cold - I
Date: 12th March 2010, Sat
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 12pm (~3 hr)
Location: Jon's home, Blvd CA
Weather: Initially really windy.. cold: below freezing.. intermittently cloudy.. intermittently foggy.. heavy dew.. Seeing was mediocre till 11pm.. later improved, but dew made life miserable.
Instruments: Jon's 16.5", TV NP101 APO. Didn't open my XTi-10.
Buddies: Aparna + Jon's friend Elli.
After India trip and dual-mode status :), this was first dark night session.
Had nice hot chocolate session ~8pm and shrimp curry ani Jeera rice session ~9pm. Aparna was with me till 9pm and later stayed in the house to keep herself warm.
M42 Orion Nebula: Nice view thru NP101. Aparna immediately noticed the quadrilateral stars. seeing wasn't that good. Tried 16T4 and 35mm pan.
Pleides: thru NP101.. 10 stars. Pan 35mm. Some of the main stars seems to be double.
Double cluster: Excellent view thru NP 101. Clearly shows the differences betn 2 clusters. lower right one is salt-pepper type while upper-left one seems more widespread.
M41 - NP101, Pan35 view of M41 want that great... lil tiny cluster.. thru jon's 16.5" dob, definitely a bright cluster.
M46 - M47: Impressive view of both clusters in NP101-Pan35 combo. Can fit both clusters together in same view. Again clearly see differences in both clusters. In Jon's 16.5", planetary in M46 was definitely big and bright.. filter wasn't required.
Rosette nebula in orion [New]: Saw this one for first time. NP101-Pan35. Its lil hard to grasp this object. Its really widespread and hence too faint.. if jon wouldn't have mentioned abt it, I can't even make out the nebulousity.. I am sure its hard to find.
M1 crab: Easy to locate. Crab was bright, but hard to see any details. I had better view of Crab before. Definitely seeing was poor.
Tau CMa: for got the location, Jon reminded me. Two star pairs above the CMa dog hind-leg. Pick up the uppermost pair, thats Tau. Central bright star with the star cluster around it.. sort of in a triangle shape..
M93 - NGC: Lil N-E of the Tau, lies M93.. Pick up the brigh star.. NW of is M93, while SE of bright star is the NGC ?? Don't remember anything specfic about M93. NGC is another fuzzy.. never read abt this one before. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: NGC seems to be 2467)
M76 Little dumbbell: Couple of stars from Andromeda lined up to point to the double cluster.. just above these stars you have little dumbbell. Too faint.. can see lil dumbbell shape.
Gamma Leonoid: Initially when split it from home, i think i messed up. This is lil hard to split with 60x magnification. you need lil higher mags to split it up.
M35 - Browsed thru binocs. Easy catch..
Continued..
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 12pm (~3 hr)
Location: Jon's home, Blvd CA
Weather: Initially really windy.. cold: below freezing.. intermittently cloudy.. intermittently foggy.. heavy dew.. Seeing was mediocre till 11pm.. later improved, but dew made life miserable.
Instruments: Jon's 16.5", TV NP101 APO. Didn't open my XTi-10.
Buddies: Aparna + Jon's friend Elli.
After India trip and dual-mode status :), this was first dark night session.
Had nice hot chocolate session ~8pm and shrimp curry ani Jeera rice session ~9pm. Aparna was with me till 9pm and later stayed in the house to keep herself warm.
M42 Orion Nebula: Nice view thru NP101. Aparna immediately noticed the quadrilateral stars. seeing wasn't that good. Tried 16T4 and 35mm pan.
Pleides: thru NP101.. 10 stars. Pan 35mm. Some of the main stars seems to be double.
Double cluster: Excellent view thru NP 101. Clearly shows the differences betn 2 clusters. lower right one is salt-pepper type while upper-left one seems more widespread.
M41 - NP101, Pan35 view of M41 want that great... lil tiny cluster.. thru jon's 16.5" dob, definitely a bright cluster.
M46 - M47: Impressive view of both clusters in NP101-Pan35 combo. Can fit both clusters together in same view. Again clearly see differences in both clusters. In Jon's 16.5", planetary in M46 was definitely big and bright.. filter wasn't required.
Rosette nebula in orion [New]: Saw this one for first time. NP101-Pan35. Its lil hard to grasp this object. Its really widespread and hence too faint.. if jon wouldn't have mentioned abt it, I can't even make out the nebulousity.. I am sure its hard to find.
M1 crab: Easy to locate. Crab was bright, but hard to see any details. I had better view of Crab before. Definitely seeing was poor.
Tau CMa: for got the location, Jon reminded me. Two star pairs above the CMa dog hind-leg. Pick up the uppermost pair, thats Tau. Central bright star with the star cluster around it.. sort of in a triangle shape..
M93 - NGC: Lil N-E of the Tau, lies M93.. Pick up the brigh star.. NW of is M93, while SE of bright star is the NGC ?? Don't remember anything specfic about M93. NGC is another fuzzy.. never read abt this one before. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: NGC seems to be 2467)
M76 Little dumbbell: Couple of stars from Andromeda lined up to point to the double cluster.. just above these stars you have little dumbbell. Too faint.. can see lil dumbbell shape.
Gamma Leonoid: Initially when split it from home, i think i messed up. This is lil hard to split with 60x magnification. you need lil higher mags to split it up.
M35 - Browsed thru binocs. Easy catch..
Continued..
Dark night kickoff in freezing cold - II
Continued..
Eskimo nebula: The middle star jumps right at you.. if seeing is better, probably can see more details. bluish disk..very bright in the center and fainter outside..
Double planetary - In Jon's 28mm UWAN ~75x, way too tiny to see this one..but definitely you can see it. The clear 8 shape visible.
M81-M82: location. I always miss the location of this one. Pick up first and 3rd star in square of UMa and draw the digonal line that points to 2-3 star cluster, just below SW of it is M81 and M82. You can defintely see the pattern/texture on the edge galaxy. The pair is clearly visible thru binocs, once you know the location.
M51 Whirlpool galaxy: Not the greatest view of whirlpool. bad seeing..
M next to the third UMa star (seems M109): in jon's 28mm UWAN, 3rd UMA star and M?? (M109) is visble in the same FoV.
M36-37-38: binocular browsing.. Jon mentioned about some ngc next to M37??
Leo triplet M65-66-3628: Jon pointed to it. 3628 fainter than other two. All 3 in same view (with uwan 28 75x ??). 3628 elongated and bigger in length than others ??
Jon's galaxy pair in UMA: Two faint galaxies in the view. If you continue the tail of UMa, same distance as 5th & 7th star along the tail. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: From the location, seems to be Hickson 68 in CVn)
M3: Jon pointed the location.. bit tricky.. visible thru binocs.. Outskirt stars are clearly resolvable. higher mag helps..
Sombrero Galaxy: Jon pointed the location.. lil tiny than what i was expecting. elongated.. but no sombrero structure visible.
Eskimo nebula: The middle star jumps right at you.. if seeing is better, probably can see more details. bluish disk..very bright in the center and fainter outside..
Double planetary - In Jon's 28mm UWAN ~75x, way too tiny to see this one..but definitely you can see it. The clear 8 shape visible.
M81-M82: location. I always miss the location of this one. Pick up first and 3rd star in square of UMa and draw the digonal line that points to 2-3 star cluster, just below SW of it is M81 and M82. You can defintely see the pattern/texture on the edge galaxy. The pair is clearly visible thru binocs, once you know the location.
M51 Whirlpool galaxy: Not the greatest view of whirlpool. bad seeing..
M next to the third UMa star (seems M109): in jon's 28mm UWAN, 3rd UMA star and M?? (M109) is visble in the same FoV.
M36-37-38: binocular browsing.. Jon mentioned about some ngc next to M37??
Leo triplet M65-66-3628: Jon pointed to it. 3628 fainter than other two. All 3 in same view (with uwan 28 75x ??). 3628 elongated and bigger in length than others ??
Jon's galaxy pair in UMA: Two faint galaxies in the view. If you continue the tail of UMa, same distance as 5th & 7th star along the tail. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: From the location, seems to be Hickson 68 in CVn)
M3: Jon pointed the location.. bit tricky.. visible thru binocs.. Outskirt stars are clearly resolvable. higher mag helps..
Sombrero Galaxy: Jon pointed the location.. lil tiny than what i was expecting. elongated.. but no sombrero structure visible.
Dark night kickoff in freezing cold - III
Continued..
Ant galaxies: Too faint.. can see two fuzzy lil things.. but cannot discern much. Tried it multiple times during the night, but wasn't much clear.
Saturn: Multiple views. Seeing was improving over the period, ring shadow is visible. 3 of the moons on right side visible.
Virgo Markarain's chain: 3 in the middle. Two on the right of it. one more on right of the pair.
Jon mentioned about coma borealis - second star - double - 0.7 arcsecond... can not split it with normal optical scope. needs excellent seeing. the day before jon was able to split 1.3 arcsecond double.. so surely this is not even possible in best seeing.
Ant galaxies: Too faint.. can see two fuzzy lil things.. but cannot discern much. Tried it multiple times during the night, but wasn't much clear.
Saturn: Multiple views. Seeing was improving over the period, ring shadow is visible. 3 of the moons on right side visible.
Virgo Markarain's chain: 3 in the middle. Two on the right of it. one more on right of the pair.
Jon mentioned about coma borealis - second star - double - 0.7 arcsecond... can not split it with normal optical scope. needs excellent seeing. the day before jon was able to split 1.3 arcsecond double.. so surely this is not even possible in best seeing.
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